‘The Wolf Man’ Gets Awesome Writer For Lame New Universe

Much like superhero movies, there’s only so many times you can do an origin story before it gets repetitive. But, what if the origin story isn’t even all that interesting?

The Universal Monsters were badass back in the 30’s and 40’s, but have since become the basis of generic Halloween costumes and cool shelf toys. I love Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature From the Black Lagoon, and all the other classics – but it doesn’t mean I want to see them modernized.

I didn’t really know what Universal had up their sleeve until the laughable closing credits to Dracula Untold, which promised modern “games” between Dracula and his creator – because, you know, he waited thousands of years to play.

Anyways, everything about Untold was stupid. And if the idiotic and bland Untold is the model being used, I expect a lot more stupid to follow.

Fortunately, Uni has their eyes on an incredible writer for another reboot of The Wolf Man, says Deadline, reporting that Prisoners scribe Aaron Guzikowski is being courted.

Prisoners was one of the hottest scripts this decade, and gives me some faith that the story can be cracked. I mean, the best thing about The Mummy reboot with Brendan Fraser is that the movie wasn’t about the mummy. My hope is that Wolf Man rejects Untold‘s origin path and tells the story from a different perspective. The thought of a Wolf Man Untold makes me wanna puke my guts out.

AROUND THE WEB

COMMENTS

Lame new universe? And yet you have no idea what the pitch, tone, plot, or arc of the story will be. You need to go back to working at McDonald’s, dude.

Caesar

If it’s anything like Dracula Untold, then yes, it will be lame.

J Jett

i just watched DRACULA UNTOLD the other day and while it’s not the most amazing movie in the world, it was decent. but to each his/her own.

macguffin54

But not good enough to jump start a network of movies. Maybe if it had come in the middle of a bunch of good movies it could have been “good enough”. But not as the first, which should have instilled confidence and set expectations high for what is to come.

And for those debating the merits of a scary film in relation to its rating, “dark subjects” don’t equal “R” (what “subjects” that weren’t in the originals would you put in the remakes that are so inherently dark they would instantly qualify them as “R”??) and blood and guts DO equal “R”. But just because you are remaking these old movies does not mean you need an R rating. We want quality movies. Suspense, atmosphere and ingenuity. We don’t need blood baths and orgies to have GOOD movies. i think that is part of the problem with filmmakers, who want to imitate Halloween (little blood but tons of suspense and atmosphere), but then throw blood and violence at the screen. They need to understand what made the source material so well-liked and remember to honor that.

Jonathan Larsson

I believe his initial worry is that it will become a generic Avengers-rip off with superficial characters and pg13-labels. If Dracula Untold was the basic tone and setting of the planned franchise, we might just get a bunch of non-scary, brainless and action-packed monster flicks that has little to nothing to do with the original movies or even completely contradicts the source material.
Universal better show some capability with their properties, otherwise we will be the ones who will suffer from it.

RidleyScottIsADirector@gmail.c

Ohhhh. Universal officially confirmed that Dracula Untold was the first movie of this new universe? Wait, they didn’t? They just said maybe? Oh. Ok.

Jonathan Larsson

Well I certainly hope it’s not part of it. Dracula is and have always been a villain. He may have been portrayed in less
dignified alterations over the years (count Chocula, Sesame Street), but if they are seriously hoping to build a new franchise based on the versions they had in their golden era, they should acknowledge the fact that the movies need to be fairly scary, interesting, and be fairly respectful to the hardcore fans of the old flicks.
Lets look at the results so far: Van Helsing, The Wolfman, The reboot from the Black Lagoon that never happened.

P.S. Remember the time when connections between old Drac and Mr Tepes were non-existent? He may have been the source of inspiration, but what on earth makes it a given that the characters must be one and the same every time?

Adam

The ratings when it comes to Universal monsters are kind of irrelevant. I would think an R rated reboot absolutely contradicts the source material.

Jonathan Larsson

Not if you actually want to scare people these days. Back in the day, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in their respective roles were the scariest things that possessed the screen; and that was without things such as gore and bloodletting. They managed to create a truly eerie atmosphere; the feeling of being way too close to the grip of something supernatural. These days it’s a lot harder to create that sort of feeling; people are less inclined to be scared of anything because they see far worse in the news and on TV.
The core of each and everyone of these stories should be to make people scared, and I fail too see how they can do that at anything less than R.

Adam

I suppose what I wonder is what is it specifically about the R Rating that makes a film scarier. Fear is obviously subjective but I personally don’t find gore and bloodletting to be scary. Take a movie like Inside. You could take the excessive gore out of that movie and the story itself is still unnerving enough to work on its own. I guess my point is that filmmakers should just make movies and not worry about the rating. They don’t need to set out to make anything but a good movie. If they end up with an R rating, fine. If they end up with a PG, fine. The rating should be irrelevant to the process of making the movie. Fans should demand good movies, not ones with specific ratings.

Jonathan Larsson

Blood and gore does not necessarily equal R-ratings, darker subjects equals R-ratings. I want these movies to be the kind of movies who are just plain scary enough to reach higher rating.
Or rather than just scary, they could also have a dark sense of humor. I for one thing would clap my hands if I got to hear that the Coenn brothers would be working on The invisible man.

Movies who are rated higher mainly because they’re more disturbing than anything is movies like Gremlins and Poltergeist. Sure they have brief instances of violence in them, but the good thing about them is that the violence isn’t the point, and therefor doesn’t have gallons of it. They reach higher because through different means.

I am not saying that the new monster universe isn’t gonna be good; there’s potential. I just think that it would be a waste of potential to bring these characters out of retirement, and then not try to make them scary again. This era that we currently live in is full of zombie and found-footage films. Why not make a true tribute to these golden age heroes of horror, and remind the world of what once ruled the genre?

Adam

I’ll agree completely on that. My point was to take the subject matter and make it scary. If that results in a higher rating, cool. TCM is a great example of what you’re saying. Hooper tried to make a PG and there was no way he could get one because of the films subject matter and the movie is probably better off because of it.

Also, I too have serious doubts on the success of this new universe and would be shocked if they were any good. I have yet to see a modern reboot of the Universal monsters that has been on par with the originals. I just figure there’s not nearly enough information for fans and sites like this to form opinions based on minor announcements.

Jonathan Larsson

I know, but there’s not much else we can do at this point. While some take the comment section a little too seriously, honest opinions and it’s general poll should be something to be considered by filmmakers. It’s a place where early research can be done regarding what the audience would like to see. For instance, if the early Michael Bay TMNT hadn’t leaked, people might’ve had to face an adaptation far worse than the one that initially hit the screens.

GothicGuido

Hammer Horror, Yo!

RidleyScottIsADirector@gmail.c

You dodo bird.

Bobby Price

“I see a bad moon a rising…I see trouble on the way.” When is Universal just going to come out and say they are really recreating the Groovie Ghoulies from the 70’s, at least then I would know for sure we are getting played for laughs.

Here is Subzero Now Plain 0

So long as this Wolfman’s got nards, I’m there.

Ethan

I am totally down for a universe type situation, but I agree with you about the origins. They need to figure out an original way to put these characters back on the big screen. We all know how these stories begin, but we rarely see anything further.

Jesse Sikora

I thought they would have learned from Van Helsing. If your gonna do Universal Monsters, do it old school!!! Not every movie has to be a CGI action adventure!

Richter Belmont

This would be a perfect opportunity for Warner Bros to trump Universal and release a ‘Creature Commandos’ or a ‘Weird War Tales’ film.

Better yet, Universal should make the ‘Castlevania’ film I’ve been waiting for since the ’80s.

GothicGuido

I wanted a Resident Evil Series… be careful what you wish for.

Bobby Jones

i wonder why no one has tried remaking Creature from the Black Lagoon?

ThunderDragoon

Right? I think that’s my favorite one of the classic monster movies.

Adam

I think it’s been in development hell for a pretty long time. I would guess there are issues with which approach to take to modernize it.

Bobby Jones

the problem is probably that they can’t think of a way to make it sexy enough to appeal to pre teens, or make it a cgi action crap fest

Dave Brown

They’ve tried to remake Creature several times. One of the more prominent was back in the early 90’s with John Carpenter attached as director. I have old back issues of Fangoria chronicling the whole pre-production. It was really going to happen. Carpenter did a recent-ish interview and he explained what happendd and why it fell through. I was really looking forward to that one when I was kid.

RawBeard

Monster Squad 2

GothicGuido

I’m have faith the writer can make this interesting. I have a feeling this is gonna be pg-13 but here’s the thing… was Prisoners even Rated R? It’s a disturbing movie but nothing extremely violent is ever shown on screen, just a lot creepy suggestions of horrible things happening. I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to write a werewolf movie right now. Prisoners made you truly uncomfortable, I think this guy can show off the symbolism of werewolves instead of another a goofy “creature feature”. Just wish it wasn’t connected to untold lol

kilkandark

I honestly don’t think the werewolf gets enough attention. Hemlock grove does a good job but the rest of the show sucks so bad if they just added more wolf then maybe it would be good. Vampires need to take a break.Frankenstein is dumb. Mummies ..eh walking dead with superpowers? …. no thanks . MORE WEREWOLF!

Advertisement

this week in horror

Danny McBride reveals more about the tone of the upcoming Halloween sequel, new details on the Friday the 13th Blu-ray Collection, and Tom Hardy's trainer reveals details about Carnage in the upcoming Venom movie!
It's THIS WEEK IN HORROR with Whitney Moore!